Gallery GNRS setup day Photo 1515 of 44The day before the doors opened for the Grand National Roadster Show, everybody was busy setting up their cars on the show floor: waxing and polishing the cars, vacuuming the carpets, gossiping about who was going to win. The show opens today, Friday, Jan. 28 and runs through Sunday at the Fairplex in Pomona.

Gallery GNRS setup day Photo 2424 of 44The day before the doors opened for the Grand National Roadster Show, everybody was busy setting up their cars on the show floor: waxing and polishing the cars, vacuuming the carpets, gossiping about who was going to win. The show opens today, Friday, Jan. 28 and runs through Sunday at the Fairplex in Pomona.

Photo by Mark Vaughn

Gallery GNRS setup day Photo 2525 of 44The day before the doors opened for the Grand National Roadster Show, everybody was busy setting up their cars on the show floor: waxing and polishing the cars, vacuuming the carpets, gossiping about who was going to win. The show opens today, Friday, Jan. 28 and runs through Sunday at the Fairplex in Pomona.

Who’s going to win the 2016 Grand National Roadster Show?

We stopped by on setup day to judge for ourselves

January 29, 2016

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The goal of every hot-rodder worth his bondo is to win at the Grand National Roadster Show. And not just win one of the 82 million trophies the show hands out like AYSO soccer awards (“Best Use of Interpretive Dance in an Ensemble Group Supporting the Art of Wheel Design”), but to win the AMBR, the Holy Grail of the hot rod. AMBR stands for “America’s Most Beautiful Roadster,” a title not unlike the Oscar for actors or a gold medal in the Olympics. For roadsters, which could mean many things but which refers to ’32 Fords more often than not, there is no higher honor than winning the AMBR.

Every year, we go down on setup day before the show opens and have a look around. Like setup day at any car show, the place is something of a mess. There’s plastic sheeting everywhere, carpeting piled in rolls and a bunch of guys with tattoos furiously polishing their cars. While the show is spread out over nine huge halls as well as much of the LA County Fairplex grounds, it’s Hall 4 that has the 12 cars competing for the AMBR. Some years it’s pretty obvious who’s going to win, some years it’s not. This year is the latter.

In fact, there were so few entries this year that the show management had to open up the AMBR competition to allow previous entries and even previous winners. There’s a Chip Foose roadster out there that won several years ago, for instance. Why so few? It could just be a cyclical thing, you can’t have parking lots full of $2 million roadster entries every year. Or it could be fallout from a sort of competition with the Ridler Award, which is handed out at the Detroit Autorama and is open to all kinds of custom cars not just roadsters. Autorama takes place not too long after the AMBR. You can’t enter both. First the Autorama and then the Grand National Roadster Show each slapped on rules years ago that said you couldn’t show your car in competition at any other show. That led car builders and owners to try and decide which show was a better return on investment. That answer is still being hashed out in the free market of custom cars.

The big standout this year is Rick Dore’s magnificent entry. It wouldn’t look out of place at all on the grass at Pebble Beach, with its silver body with flowing fenders formed by Marcel Dulay, highlighted by chrome strips running in perfect symmetry along the creases. Of course, Pebble might not accept the LS1 under the hood. Named Aquarius, the '34 Packardish lookalike has more Figoni et Filaschi DNA than the Ford found in the competition. It was built for Metallica's James Hetfield, a man of excellent taste. It is a thing of beauty but might be too great a departure for a show that has almost always given its top award to a ’32, ’33 or sometimes even a ’34 Ford. Or maybe a ’29 Ford body on ’32 frame rails. But you never know.

The Hollenbecks call this color, "guacamole."

Pickup trucks have won before: The Barris Ala Kart won it twice, and there are two trucks entered this year (yes, a pickup can be a roadster as long as it has two doors and a removable roof). Wes Rawlins’ ’32 Ford pickup was built by Troy Ladd’s Hollywood Hot Rods. Rawlins went to several builders before Ladd. “I didn’t feel they shared the same vision,” Rawlins said. Everything on the truck is period correct, right down to the screws, which are all slot heads. “They didn’t have Phillips heads back then,” said Rawlins.

Another truck is the Salt Scorpion owned by Ron and Lori Simm. The truck was originally owned by “an old Iowa corn farmer,” whose second cousin, Skeeter Oldewurtel (there's a name you'll remember), built it into what you see here, more or less. It was “freshened” by CAM Auto Creations of Phoenix, Arizona. If one of the judging criteria is something you’d want to get in and drive, this one will score highly on the judges’ sheets.

There are two ’36 Ford roadsters, both with long fenders intact. The black one is called Tribute and was built by Squeeg Jerger. It looks long and low. Troy Ladd also has a ’36, with more of a stockish-look, at least from a distance; once you get close and look inside, there are a lot of details to separate it from the crowd.

There are plenty of more or less traditional hot rods, too.

Darryl and Terri Hollenbeck have hot rods in their blood. Darryl is a third-generation hot-rodder and Terri is sister to Roy Brizio and a daughter of Andy Brizio. In the family there are multiple AMBR trophies. The Hollenbecks put 10,000 miles on their hot rod, including a drive to the Lone Star Nationals in Austin, Texas. The color is a standout; they couldn’t agree on what to paint it -- one wanted green and one brown -- so they compromised with what Terri calls “guacamole.” The coolest part of the car may be the shifter, which is made of Fordite, the material that accumulates on the floor of a paint shop. To hot-rodders, that’s considered a precious metal.

The Blue By You is a ’31 Ford Roadster that took the guys at Charly’s Garage only nine months to build. Gary Matrango’s American Ice is a white ’32 Ford roadster with a video build book to inform showgoers about the car. Tom Lieb’s AV8 is a blue 1929 SCAT roadster. There are others, too. If you go, pick a winner yourself. It won’t be easy.

Organizers promise there will be over 500 show vehicles inside the halls and another 400 to 800 on the grounds outside.

A good deal for showgoers is to get the $30-a-day ticket that allows you entry to the NHRA Motorsports Museum, which is just one building away from the roadster show’s Hall 4. You can even walk through the museum to get into the roadster show itself, which you can’t do without the museum ticket (and once inside, you get 10 percent off in the gift shop!).